Answering a question about public school safety at an event hosted by the MT World Affairs Council and during a July 1 Tele Town Hall when asked about a vaccine and conspiracy theories about vaccine surveillance, Gianforte “shared some very exciting news” about the prospect of “herd immunity” to control the disease spread. Gianforte went on to claim that we will “reach herd immunity in the United States by the end” of 2020.
In both cases, Gianforte cited Dr. Scott Gottlieb, who now not only says we are far away from achieving herd immunity but who questions the wisdom of sending kids back to school.
Gianforte’s endorsement of herd immunity as a response to Covid-19 ignores the devastating consequences in countries that have already tried it, and it threatens countless lives, particularly for the elderly and sick.
Even at a 1% mortality rate from the disease, achieving herd immunity could cost 2.1 million lives in the United States:
Soumya Swaminathan, the World Health Organization’s chief scientist, said that given the transmissibility of the novel coronavirus, it is likely that about 65 to 70 percent of a population would need to become infected to achieve herd immunity.
In the United States, with a population of 328 million, reaching a 65 percent threshold for herd immunity may require 2.13 million deaths, assuming the virus has a 1 percent fatality rate, according to an analysis by The Post.
The dangers of the herd immunity strategy are most pressing for older people and those with compromised immune systems. While young, healthy people may not become extremely sick, their infection spreads the likelihood that those they come in contact with will.
Both Sweden and the UK attempted in the early days of the pandemic to follow a herd immunity strategy—with deadly results:
The United Kingdom pursued such a strategy early on but abandoned it when officials saw the consequences. Sweden, which pursued a similar strategy, has been heavily criticized by public health officials and infectious-disease experts as reckless: The country has among the highest infection and death rates in the world.
Montanans should be deeply concerned about what will happen if Greg Gianforte is tasked with leading us through this pandemic, a crisis that experts say will be with us long after the November election. As Republican Attorney General Tim Fox noted, Gianforte put profiteering from the disease ahead of governing. There is no reason to believe that will end once he’s elected. Hell, it hasn’t even stopped since the primary, as Gianforte is still investing in companies that make breathing equipment for hospitals.
Every time he’s been asked how he would respond differently from the way Governor Bullock has, he refuses to answer.
As he travels across the state (from Whitefish to Bozeman to Dillon to Havre in just the past few days, for instance), he refuses to practice good public health and personal responsibility.
And he touts—and has never corrected nor walked back—a strategy that would be a public health nightmare ensuring the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands, of Montanans.
Leading Montana through Covid-19 demands the steady leadership of someone who will listen to the science, lead by example, and not seek to make a quick buck on the stock market while people are dying alone in intensive care across our state and the country.
At every opportunity, Greg Gianforte has failed the moral, practical, and scientific tests Covid-19 has presented. Why would we give him the chance to put those cynical, greedy, unscientific ideas into practice?
